... i.e., that which encompasses race, sex, class, religion, ethnicity, etc. all at once, is an invention of the last few decades; it's happened within the lifetime of most of the people here. Pretty much every real move toward an egalitarian society before that -- e.g., the end of the "90% of men are slaves" attitude you're talking about -- has been the result of one or two particular groups advancing their chosen cause.

In societies where most men are effectively slaves to the local nobility, women are effectively slaves to the men. The men may be low down, but the women are lower still. This is true in every example I know of (if you have a documented counterexample, please produce it, but I'm not holding my breath) and the great social-mobility movements of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which brought down feudalism, deferred women's rights to a later time. Feminism qua feminism, not some vague idea of "egalitarianism," was absolutely necessary to give women even close to equal status.

There's some history for you. Deal with it, or argue the point intelligently, if you can.

... have all been favorite scapegoats: "My child couldn't possibly be coming up with this stuff on her own! It's that horrible music she listens to!" Unfortunately, now as when we were teenagers, many parents of children with real problems will focus on the music and the subculture rather than the problems themselves. The reality is that depressed kids like dark music; the music is, at most, a symptom of the real problem.

For myself and my peers, the music was actually an antidote to depression -- listening to Siouxsie wail or Andrew Eldritch moan made us feel better about our lives. (Actually, as a 39-year-old all the usual worries of early middle age, I still find this to be the case.) I'm afraid that an awful lot of parents of emo kids will do what many did when we were young, and make it more difficult for their children to seek musical refuge. This won't make the problems go away -- it will, of course, make them worse -- but it will seem like a satisfying quick fix to parents who are scared of dealing with what's really going on inside their kids' heads.

... I keep getting letters from the Obama campaign and I've never sent them a dime. (As I tell them, the DCCC, etc., whenever they call me begging for money: "I'm poor, that's why I'm a Democrat.") What I have sent them is two angry letters, one when they threw Clark under the bus for daring to criticize McCain (!) and one about the FISA sellout. Apparently their data mining software isn't sophisticated enough to give them that information.

"I'm doing fine, and so is everybody I know down at the country club. What's wrong with the rest of you people?"

Suppose a woman stated that she wanted to have her clitoris removed, and when told that no physician would perform the act, insisted that it was her choice.

Suppose she were raped, and then asked her that her husband or father or brothers be allowed to kill her to preserve the family honor.

Suppose a black person asked to be whipped for disobedience to an employer.

Suppose an American Indian asked to be given a smallpox-infested blanket.

Suppose a Jew asked to be gassed.

Etc. In every one of these cases, any civilized society would of course say not only no, but hell no. Some acts are simply repugnant, and no amount of respect for the principle of freedom of choice will allow them. Does wearing the niqab fall into that category? I really don't know. It's clearly less severe than any of the above, but it's still clearly a big deal to a lot of people.

Under Saddam, Iraqi women could, and did, dress how they pleased; they could, and did, go to school; and religious militias could not, and did not, enforce sharia law on the general populace. These are facts, not opinions, and well-documented. If the reality conflicts with your chosen propaganda, that's your problem.

Under Saddam, women had to worry about the rape rooms, yes. Under the fundamentalist wackos whom Saddam kept in check, but the US war has unleashed, the entire country has become a rape room. As for torture, Iraqis don't need to secret police to do that any more -- because their friends and neighbors will do it for them.

Oh, I'm very in touch with reality. I was in touch with reality back in '91, serving in Daddy Bush's war, and I'm in touch with it now, watching my wounded brothers and sisters in arms come home from Baby Bush's fucked up war in a fucked up place that we've fucked up even worse. Which is more reality than you'll ever know, with your fantasy world built on right-wing blogs and your chickenhawk rants.

I'm also aware that they mean different things. We could of course use only one punctuation mark -- say, a left parenthesis -- if we wanted, or no punctuation at all; but we would lose much of the richness of written language thereby. The idea that a perfectly good punctuation mark should be avoided because of its "gender" strikes me as bizarre.

Israeli right-wingers influence American politics to encourage endless war. American right-wingers influence Israeli politics for the same purpose. It's an international collusion of crazies pushing both governments to do terrible things against the will of most of both countries' inhabitants.

What should we call such a conspiracy? Hmmm, there's a phrase some American politician came up with a few years ago that sounds pretty descriptive ... "Axis of Evil," if I recall.